The Poet rapt mine ears

With the transporting music that he sung.
With fibres from his life his lyre he strung,

And bathed the world in tears

And then he turned away to muse apart,
And Scorn stole after him and broke his heart!

Yet here and there I saw

One who did set the world at calm defiance,

And press right onward with a bold reliance;
And he did seem to awe

The very Shadows pressing on his breast,
And, with a strong heart, held himself at rest.

And then I looked again,

And he had shut the door upon the crowd,
And on his face he lay and groaned aloud-
Wrestling with hidden pain;

And in her chamber sat his wife in tears,

And his sweet babes grew sad with whispered fears.

And so I turned sick-hearted

From the bright cup away, and in my sadness

Searched mine own bosom for some spring of gladness;
And lo! a fountain started

7

Whose waters ev'n in death flow calm and fast,
And my wild fever-thirst was slaked at last.

And then I met thee, Mary,

And felt how love may into fulness pour,
Like light into a fountain running o'er;
And I did hope to vary

My life but with surprises sweet as this—
A dream, but for thy waking, filled with bliss.

Yet now I feel my spirit

Bitterly stirred, and-nay, lift up thy brow!
It is thine own voice echoing to thee now,
And thou didst pray to hear it-

I must unto my work and my stern hours!

Take from my room thy harp, and books, and flowers!

A year

And in his room again he sat alone.

His frame had lost its fulness in that time;

His handsome features had grown sharp and thin,
And from his lips the constant smile had faded.
Wild fires had burned the languor from his eye:
The lids looked fevered, and the brows were bent
With an habitual frown. He was much changed.
His chin was resting on his clenched hand,

And with his foot he beat upon the floor
Unconsciously the time of a sad tune.

Thoughts of the past preyed on him bitterly.

He had won power and held it. He had walked
Steadily upward in the eye of Fame,

And kept his truth unsullied-but his home
Had been invaded by envenomed tongues;
His wife-his spotless wife-had been assailed
By slander, and his child had grown afraid
To come to him-his manners were so stern.
He could not speak beside his own hearth freely.
His friends were half estranged, and vulgar men
Presumed upon their services and grew
Familiar with him. He'd small time to sleep,
And none to pray; and, with his heart in fetters,
He bore deep insults silently, and bowed
Respectfully to men who knew he loathed them!
And when his heart was eloquent with truth,
And love of country and an honest zeal
Burned for expression, he could find no words
They would not misinterpret with their lies.
What were his many honors to him now?
The good half doubted, falsehood was so strong-
His home was hateful with its cautious fears-
His wife lay trembling on his very breast

Frighted with calumny!- -And this is FAME.

THE SCHOLAR OF THEBET BEN CHORAT.*

'Influentia cœli morbum hunc movet, interdum omnibus aliis amotis.' Melancthon de anima, cap. de humoribus.

NIGHT in Arabia. An hour

agone

Pale Dian had descended from the sky,
Flinging her cestus out upon the sea,
And at their watches now the solemn stars
Stood vigilant and lone, and, dead asleep,
With not a shadow moving on its breast,
The breathing Earth lay in its silver dew,
And, trembling on their myriad viewless wings,
Th' imprisoned odors left the flowers to dream
And stole away upon the yielding air.

* A famous Arabian astrologer, who is said to have spent forty years in discovering the motion of the eighth sphere. He had a scholar, a young Bedouin Arab, who, with a singular passion for knowledge, abandonod his wandering tribe, and, applying himself too closely to astrology, lost his reason, and died.

Ben Chorat's tower stands shadowy and tall
In Mecca's loneliest street; and ever there,
When night is at the deepest, burns his lamp
As constant as the Cynosure, and forth
From his looped window stretch the brazen tubes,
Pointing forever at the central star

Of that dim nebula just lifting now
Over Mount Arafat. The sky to-night
Is of a clearer blackness than is wont,
And far within its depths the colored stars*
Sparkle like gems-capricious Antares †
Flushing and paling in the Southern arch,
And azure Lyra, like a woman's eye,
Burning with soft blue lustre, and away
Over the desert the bright Polar-star,
White as a flashing icicle, and here,

* Even to the naked eye, the stars appear of palpably different colors; but when viewed with a prismatic glass, they may be very accurately classed into the red, the yellow, the brilliant white, the dull white, and the anomalous. This is true also of the planets, which shine by reflected light, and of course the difference of color must be supposed to arise from their different powers to absorb and reflect the rays of the sun. The original composition of the stars, and the different dispersive powers of their different atmospheres, may be supposed to account also for this phenomenon.

†This star exhibits a peculiar quality—a rapid and beautiful change in the color of its light; every alternate twinkling being of an intense reddish crimson color, and the answering one of a brilliant white.